The Moon's Orbit is WEIRD

We think of the moon as orbiting the earth, following a spiraling trajectory as the earth itself orbits the sun. But this is wrong. Not only is the moon's orbit NOT a spiral... there's an argument that the moon actually orbits the sun, not the earth! The moon's trajectory is more like a 12-sided polygon with curved corners than it is a spiral or even a wiggly line.


MinutePhysics is on twitter - @minutephysics

Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in physics -- all in a minute!

Created by Henry Reich

[edibleapeman]

Didn’t expect to have my entire conception of the Moon decompiled today, but here we are.

Thank you for making me feel young again.

[stevewithaq]

0:49 The ancients amongst us were just reminded of the Spirograph...

[urotaion]

2:12 absolutely mental movement right there

[nathancoupe-gunter]

1:32 is a poster just begging to be sold. I was fully captivated by it for at least 10 minutes. Bravo for all you've achieved on this channel Henry!

[samthestache]

Minutephysics, I have one small critique. This was a very interesting video, and the little notes yoy kept putting up on screen made it more so, but if you are going to do that, can you leave the note up slightly longer? With each note only being up for about a second, on mobile I was struggling to pause the video fast enough to actually read the note. Each time one appeared I had to back up the video and try again 2 or 3 times. Its a small thing, but I hope you consider it.

[landonkryger]

IIRC, Jupiter's moon Io is one of the few moons that does trace out loops.

[lvcifer-cloverfield]

The visuals for this one are really impressive. Incredible work, this must've taken ages

[vpsjdon]

Haha I think this is the first video where I ALREADY knew the answer. My science teacher in school told us that the Moon's orbit from the perspective of the Sun would look like an Imarti (it's a sweet dish that looks spirally, google it ).

But I wasn't sure so I tried to create an entire animation in After Effects and tried to be as close to 'scale' and correct orbital periods as possible. Eventually I found that the Moon barely curves at all and for all intents and purposes, the orbit is quite circular

[davidci]

2:12 Was the worst possible time for me to take a sip of chocolate milk

[MikalCaober]

2:03 lol did the Moon/Earth run something over?

[ItsJJOLO]

Following the moon while it orbits, having it change too while it’s still moving, was pretty impressive compositing

[duncanbeauch]

Seeing the tools you use to create your animations is so cool, I'd love to learn more! Maybe a behind the scenes...?

[ZetaFuzzMachine]

1:31 thanks for spending the extra time completing the graph! It was very much satisfying

[samwallaceart]

This is why time travel movies should also factor in orbital drift. Even if you can tether the time machine to heliocentrism, where you're standing on Earth isn't the same as where that spot was 5 minutes ago.

[socalminstrel]

"Should we then say that each part of the Earth independently orbits the sun?"

Yes. Yes, we should. I will absolutely be saying that from now on.

[rosiefay]

0:20 That is still consistent with the fact that the moon orbits the earth.

[ahmedyusuf]

Could the moon be orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of the milky way if we're gonna think like this?

[hydrocarbon]

Like any long-term relationship: it's complicated

Like any Brilliant-sponsored vid: it's discounted

[apollomartin]

The Moon did used to be closer to the Earth! So was there *ever* a time that the Moon made cusps or spirals around the Sun?

[Reohz]

> "...possibly futile endeavour."
I love that you called yourself out, but this was interesting all the same.